Mystery Cult initiation of greater/lesser immunity to warping

Use the Latent Magic Ability Virtue?

Via suspension of disbelief for, to complete your character's in-game goals. If you don't want to allow it, seems very reasonable.

I view it the same as if a young Hedge Witch (Ungifted) had Puissant Second Sight before she underwent the initiation to gain Second Sight. It's just setting up the character to be good at something they don't yet have. Plenty of people in real life discover talents at things they didn't even know existed before they reached adulthood.

In fact, those virtues being in place are basically a catalyst for forming the Cult Lore in the first place. Somebody's got to be the first and the first at anything is likely to be good at it or they'd never develop it significantly in the first place.

Looked at from a different angle, someone is spending 3 virtue points and at least 20 seasons to be able to start taking terrible risks (i.e. gaining flaws with no virtues attached) and developing an otherwise relatively useless Ability. Mystery Cult stuff often hampers a magi's power level significantly in exchange for doing esoteric stuff, and that's just JOINING a cult, never mind founding one!

Something I didn't see mentioned above was that Initiating someone without the gift must always include a balancing ordeal (flaw).

Also, this was mentioned above, I second the idea that rather than trying to initiate your grogs into "Lesser Immunity (Warping from living in a magic aura)" Give them any magic-aligned supernatural virtue which has that same effect. Unaging, Lesser Immunity to some other thing, Second Sight all seem much better choices... though might require knowing that those with supernatural features don't gain warping for living in auras though I assume that's fairly basic understanding in the order and could easily fall under Magic Lore or Magic Theory depending on the SG.

I hadn't noticed that about the Ungifted having to take an ordeal flaw its in TMRE? I will have to point it out to my player.

For the rest though its the story the player wants to tell, I see it as my job to facilitate that as far as I can within the rules. I imagine it would be a much more boring story if they just all pick magically aligned characters and take the magical coven folk virtue, a valid option. but any sense of accomplishment would just be gone. This way when all the mages finally get to the point where they can inhabit the aura and found the covenant they stat'd out at the beginning of the campaign when they where all 5 year old snot nosed kids and do their first lab season in a level 10 aura. That players hard work and vision will be rewarded as he and his fellow wizards now have what they waited so long for.

Inset on p 14 of HMRE. Most of the rules in Mysteries only apply to gifted initiates.

I was not suggesting all the grogs start with something that affiliates them to the magic realm but that they be initiated into a magic-related virtue... convincing the grogs to undergo the initiation might be easier if they could see some benefit from it rather than merely a removal of a negative they might not even know about or that takes long enough to rear its head (maybe not in a level 10 aura but I’m assuming the cult with mundane initiations will begin before moving there). I thought the magical covenfolk virtue was just for magical beings with might.

thanks
ah I see what you mean, so an actual virtue that grants something and allows them to be in the aura 10 also. The virtue he was looking to develop was two fold anyways aura alignment and no warping from spells designed to target Messengers of Mercury. I will run that past him. Pagan would seem to be a suitable flaw perhaps. would welcome any other suggestions though or is that something he would pick by the rules?

Ah, I didn’t catch the bit about immune to spells that are designed for Messengers of Mercury but figure that at least seems like a small enough issue for the grogs themselves and since ordeals don’t help future initiations for ungifted, a major flaw for a minor virtue seems a bad trade.

it would make it extremely easy to initiate however, but i take your point maybe something lesser like pious as a minor.

It would make it much harder to create the script experimentally though. As the script bonus goes up the difficulty for the Int+MC Lore goes up. Finding a happy medium between those two things is important for success.